Why were the police prisoners in Stutthof never honored?

As the son of one of the 271 police officers sent to the Stutthof concentration camp in 1943, I know a lot about the atrocities they were subjected to.

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In order to gain control over the police, the German occupying power arrested 470 police officers. It was approximately 10 percent of the police force. “Aktion Polarkreis” was implemented on 16 August 1943. The action sent shock waves into the police, with paralysis and complacency among the rest of the police.

271 of the arrested police officers were sent to the Stutthof concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. My father, Einar Bjelland, was one of them. In my recent book “Father’s no”, I have described the atrocities and pressure he and the 270 others were exposed to and my father’s life after he returned home.

Expected no honors

The Germans hoped to get the police prisoners to cooperate. In January 1944, they were therefore transferred to a special camp – “Sonderlager”. Here there was an alternation between rewards and the worst threats. But they resisted.

When the police prisoners returned home from captivity, no honor awaited them. On the contrary: They had to compete for permanent positions with colleagues who had been granted immunity from prosecution for Nazi sympathies. There was strong rivalry and positioning between these groups.

Those who came from captivity were weakened. They were in the minority, and they were quiet. Some of the police prisoners made careers in the police after the war. Others never got a permanent position, they didn’t settle in – and they quit, like my father.

In working on the book, I have come into contact with descendants of other prisoners from Stutthof. It strikes me that it is often the fathers’ nightmares and screams in the night that they talk about. The trauma was a dark secret and a shame in many families. Outside the homes, the nightmares and screams were not talked about.

Was never followed up

It would have been easier to live with this if the Norwegian Police Agency had been able to portray what the police prisoners had been through as something honorable.

In 1994, I wrote to the Ministry of Justice and the Police and asked if the police prisoners could receive a tribute/recognition for what they went through during the war. I knew it would mean a lot to father, but the input was not followed up by the ministry.

Now all the prisoners are dead, and it is too late for a medal. But the question of honors still seems to be a hot topic. I noticed that after I had presented my book to some old police officers. Afterwards I was told that medals were something “they didn’t talk about”.

I wonder if attitudes from the friction between the various factions after the war still linger in the police?

Gives the impression that the prisoners were on a holiday colony

Historian Nils Johan Ringdal’s book “Between the bark and the wood” (1987) about the role of the police during the occupation, is in a way the “official history” – also about the police prisoners.

The book, with a total of 450 pages, contains only five pages about the Germans’ action against the police and the Stutthof prisoners. It minimizes the efforts of the police prisoners. And a great deal of what is written about these prisoners is wrong. The book does not mention that the prisoners were starved in the camp, or that they were subjected to cruel pressure and threats to try to get them to cooperate.

The death march is not mentioned, nor is the fact that the prisoners were stripped of their gold teeth and that their wages were stopped after a while. The book almost gives the impression that the prisoners were on a holiday colony.

From 1984, Ringdal was engaged by the Ministry of Justice to investigate the role of the police in Norway during the Second World War. It also gave him, as it says on the cover, material for the book “Between the bark and the wood”. The book has greatly damaged the reputation of the police prisoners.

It is time to highlight the real story of the prisoners and their fate after the war. Their efforts should be honored, not hidden away.